Bill StevensYes, dreams can come true With the help of a fellow fan, John Tatro will see Saturday's Pepsi 400 from the Earnhardt tower at Daytona on Saturday.

Philip GaileyAmerican people will soon awaken from politicians' fantasiesI am beginning to wonder if the American people are as dumb as the politicians in Washington think we are. The political debate in Congress -- from tax cuts to the patients' rights bill, from education reform to campaign finance overhaul, from gun control to fiscal responsibility -- has less to do with solving problems than with scoring political points. If public opinion polls are to be believed, the Democrats have the political advantage on most of the issues on the Washington agenda. But does anyone really believe that either party has the political will to do what it would take to expand health care, reduce gun violence, rescue poor children trapped in urban education ghettos or practice fiscal discipline?

Martin DyckmanBoard's political heft mattersTALLAHASSEE -- Toward the close of the introduction of Florida State University's new board of trustees, Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan, the master of ceremonies, remarked that he couldn't linger for the reception to follow. He needed to go home to change ties before his next presentation at the University of Florida.

Bill MaxwellSummer is good time for kids to simply be kids The other morning, I heard an administrator with the Baltimore school district on National Public Radio bragging about the district's massive summer school program called "Teach Baltimore." The program's more than 12,000 students are "never left unsupervised" and are "are never left alone," the woman intoned.

Robyn BlumnerFor Bush, abortion gag rule is only the beginning One of George W. Bush's first acts as president -- literally on his first full day in office -- was to delight conservative supporters by reinstating the Global Gag Rule. The rule prohibits U.S. foreign aid money from flowing to overseas family planning organizations that provide abortion services or even talk favorably about abortion to their patients or the public.

EditorialsDon't forgo 'North,' DakotaNorth Dakota's chamber of commerce has decided that the state's name is bad for business. "North Dakota" conjures up an image of a "cold and snowy and flat" place, says former Gov. Ed Schafer.

A breakthrough for justiceSlobodan Milosevic's arrival in a jail cell in The Hague marked a triumph of international law. The former Yugoslavian strongman's impending trial before a U.N. war crimes tribunal also vindicates the patience and persistence of the United States and our NATO allies, which worked together to bring Milosevic to justice under circumstances that protected the new governments of Serbia and Yugoslavia.

A contaminated processBy endorsing a voting equipment company in exchange for financial considerations, the Florida Association of Counties took what amounts to a bribe.